SCHOOLS
1. The earliest schools in England were held in the =monasteries=, and
were intended for boys and young men who were to be trained as priests,
missionaries, or monks. There were famous schools at Canterbury, York,
and Jarrow in the seventh and eighth centuries. In King Alfred's time,
at the end of the ninth century, great attention was paid to the
teaching of both girls and boys. Later still, in the tenth century, we
find the teaching of the young attracting great attention.
2. Latin was taught in these schools, and many of the scholars became
famous students and deep thinkers. In the course of time others,
besides those intending to become monks and priests, were also taught,
and became clerks and found various employments, as we have seen, in
civil business.
3. Gradually =other schools= sprang up, outside the monasteries and
cathedrals, which were not meant for monks or priests, though they were
at first connected with monasteries, colleges, and cathedrals. For
instance, in Norman times, not very long after the Conquest, there were
=grammar-schools= at Derby, St. Alban's, and Bury St. Edmund's.
4. When we think of these schools we must not picture to ourselves
great buildings to hold two or three hundred boys, such as we see now;
nor must we suppose that there was a great rush of pupils to them.
Boys did not go to school from nine till twelve, and from two till
four, with plenty of time for cricket, football, and sports of all
descriptions. School work was very hard, and was regarded as a serious
business. There was a great deal of learning by heart to be done. You
see, books were few and costly, and a man's best reference library was
his own well-stored memory. No doubt this hard work helped to train the
memory, and was good discipline for the scholar.
5. In the monasteries and colleges, where boys were trained to sing in
the =choir=, they had to learn their services by heart. In the ordinary
services there were long psalms and passages of Scripture attached
to them which differed for every day, and the boys had to know these
perfectly in Latin. For hours and hours every day the little fellows
were drilled in the services till they were word-perfect. There were
something like seven services to be learned for each of the three
hundred and sixty-five days of the year.
6. We talk of Latin nowadays as a dead language, but it was anything
but a dead language in the Middle Ages. School was held all day long,
from quite early in the morning; and during school-hours woe betide the
lads if they talked in any other language but Latin.
7. Choir-boys had to be taught in the =song-school= as well, how to
sing their services, and the music was just as difficult as the words
and had also to be learned by heart.
8. In the parish churches the priest and the parish clerk had boys whom
they trained to help in the services. The services were much simpler
and shorter than those in the monasteries; but they were in Latin, and
had to be known by heart.
9. In the grammar and other schools the boys were drilled in the works
of old Latin scholars in much the same way, and in some cases in Greek
authors as well, with a certain amount of arithmetic and science.
10. There were no long weeks of holidays to look forward to at
Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, and in the summer; but during the year
there were many holy days kept, which were holiday, on which neither
school-boys nor villeins did their ordinary work. Thus, no doubt,
school-boys managed to get a fair amount of play, and found time for
getting into mischief.
11. For instance, at St. Alban's we read that in the year 1310 the boys
were forbidden to wander or run about the streets and roads without
reasonable cause. If a lad did so, he was to be sought for and punished
by the master "in the accustomed way"; and every boy knows what that
was. Then, too, the scholars must not bear arms, either in school
or out of school. That was to prevent them from fighting with the
townspeople. It is very curious to notice that even nowadays there is
often no love lost between "grammar boys" and "town boys"; they can get
up a quarrel almost as easily in the twentieth century as they did in
the thirteenth.
12. Boys took part in acting the =earliest plays= that were represented
in England. At first the plays dealt with religious subjects, and were
called "Mysteries" and "Miracles"; and these plays and shows became
very popular in England. Geoffrey de Gorham, in early Norman days,
taught a school at Dunstable, and wrote one of these plays called St.
Catherine. He borrowed vestments from St. Alban's Abbey, in which to
dress some of his characters; but on the following night his house
somehow caught fire, and his books and the borrowed vestments were
destroyed in the flames.
13. In the cloisters of some of our old cathedral churches and
colleges, such as Gloucester and Westminster, on some of the old
stone benches, there are holes and scratches still to be seen where
school-boys of long ago played games with marbles and stones.
14. By the thirteenth century there seem to have been schools in all
the chief towns. Though they may not have held very many scholars, they
were not intended for the sons of well-to-do people only; they were
for =poor scholars= as well. Thus, at St. Alban's, provision was made
for sixteen poor scholars, and the same kind of provision was quite
common. There was some chance, even in those days, for a lad with
"brains" to get on in the world. In fact, we know that in those Middle
Ages a good many men rose "from the ranks" to hold high office in the
state. There was, for instance, Thomas à Becket. He was born in London,
and not ashamed to be known as Thomas of London. Then there was Thomas
Scot, who rose to be Archbishop of York and Chancellor of England in
the fifteenth century, who was known as Thomas of Rotherham, after
the place where he was born. William of Wykeham, that great founder
of schools, is still known by the name of the little out-of-the-way
Hampshire village where he was born--Wykeham. Winchester College, the
first of our =public schools=, was founded by him. His real surname was
Longe, and the motto he chose, "Manners Makyth Man", is worth putting
up in every school in the land.
[Illustration: Photo. Valentine
WINCHESTER COLLEGE (page 132)]
15. But there were dunces in those days too, who made little or no use
of their opportunities, and others who turned them to bad purposes.
=Summary.=--Schools began in the monasteries, and those at
Canterbury, York, and Jarrow were famous in the seventh and eighth
centuries; and King Alfred was a great promoter of schools. Soon
after the Conquest other schools began at Derby, St. Alban's, and
Bury St. Edmund's. Learning had to be by heart, as books were
few. Latin was the great language of learning in the Middle Ages.
There were frequent holidays, though they did not last for weeks
at a stretch. Boys took part in the early _Mystery Plays_, which
were the origin of our stage plays. By the thirteenth century
there were small schools in most towns, and provision was made
for poor scholars. Many great men, like Thomas à Becket, Thomas of
Rotherham, and William of Wykeham, rose from such schools as these.